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American City, Southern Place: A Cultural History of Antebellum Richmond by Gregg D. Kimball; and Montgomery in the Good War: Portrait of a Southern City, 1939-1946 by Wesley Phillips Newton (review)

by David R. Goldfield Southern Cultures, Vol. 8, No. 4: Ghosts

University of Georgia Press, 2000;
University of Alabama Press, 2000

When it came to writing southern history a generation ago, cities were places up north. The “true” South was embodied in the small town, the plantation or farm, and those who inhabited these timeless places. Not so any more. Books on the urban South are becoming commonplace. As a result, we know more not just about southern cities, but about the South. Montgomery in the Good War and American City, Southern Place reflect the value of these studies: One adds to our knowledge of how the South coped with the dislocations and disruptions of World War II in its own particular way; the other extends our knowledge of the years just before the Civil War and our understanding of how postwar events should be interpreted in the context of antebellum precedents.